M LANKALINGAM CHAIRMAN & INNOVATION HEAD OF LANSON GROUP OF COMPANIES COMPILED BY SUDHA UMASHANKER, FREELANCE JOURNALIST & SOCIAL

ACTIVIST

Success Stories - How it was done!

Exerpts of the talk delivered by Mr M Lankalingam, Chairman & Innovation Head of Lanson Group of Companies on 27th November 2006 When Mr M Lankalingam, Chairman and Innovative Head, Lanson Group narrated his success story at a meeting organized by MMA recently it was like a crash course in management. Peppered with homilies and pointers from his own life Lankalingam also known as the Pappadom king offered plenty of food for thought Taking over the reins of the Pappadom business in his early twenties after his father suffered a heart attack, Lankalingam achieved phenomenal increase in volumes by innovative thinking. People in the UK were eating pappadoms differently as compared to those in India. So we decided to fry the pappadoms and sell it to them. This small innovation which took out the inconvenience factor for the British translated into great business. Today his company commands more than 80% of the market in the European Union for Pappadoms Again when the company was facing a long labour strike and their inventory was down to three days stock he quickly negotiated with the buyer, had the cargo air freighted and a five year contract was entered into with the extra cost being recovered by the buyer over a period of time and Lankalingam became the exclusive supplier for the buyer. An example of how a problem was converted into an opportunity. By pulling partly and letting go partly it was a win win situation for all. Make quick decisions and communicate without delay he urged. Lankalingam who has also made successful forays into other businesses like automobile dealerships had an interesting story to tell about how he landed the Toyota dealership. He was holidaying with his wife and children in Disneyland when they learnt of the announcement. There was just no way he could meet the deadline because they would still be on holiday. So though they lost interest but out of sheer persistence surfed the Net and found that for the internet applications alone the deadline was extended. We got lucky there and so we filled out the application and filed it with Rupees One lakh deposit. Some of the things we liked about the Toyota dealership was that they said you should have no automotive experience (I thought great I am the man for the job), you shouldnt have land inside the city and we want a showroom and workshop in the same place unlike the other dealerships currently operating in the country. We made a great presentation and became a dealer in 2000 Quoting Carl Sewell of Sewell Lexus he said In India a customer buys Rupees One crore worth of cars in a life time. A customer is like God to us never mind if he had just Rupees One lakh on hand Besides looking after our customers we also looked after our people a lot and some people have this impression that we look after our employees more than our customers. I fully agree with that because as a single person I cannot satisfy 14000 of my customers but I have 450 people who look after them and we look after them he revealed. If you are wondering how he keeps his staff motivated he had the answers too We introduced innovations in pay, innovations in management and innovations in the way incentives were disbursed. At one point in time our company decided we should become the largest dealer in a month which was a very tough proposition because Delhi was a huge market which we could never beat. We introduced a unique incentive program. We asked our sales personnel how many of them would like to earn Rupees One lakh a month. Many hands went up. We got them to

commit figures, we called our accounts dept and asked them to write out everybodys cheques even before they could sell a single car. We told them they couldnt deposit them but instructed them to put it in their dressing rooms and this energized their wives even more because they had already planned how to spend the money. Believe it or not we sold more cars than we had ever imagined. If we can start sharing profits with our people there is no away anyone can stop us. Lanson is all about people Innovation seems to be a way of life with Lankalingam. His Driver Satisfaction program being a case in point They school mates, my brother and I were accosted by security authorities armed with machine guns for carrying two artistic knives with us and I remember very vividly a man running as fast as he could screaming these are my boys. It was a very touching moment and the man was Clement Felix who never let down his team. After we returned to Chennai there was no mention of this incident either to the school or to my parents. He just forgave, forgot and moved on with life. In 1983 my father sent me off to the US not to study but to go and experience USA. I had had a very sheltered say every business success is 99% inspiration and 1% perspiration but for me that doesnt hold true. I think a lot of business is about being inspired. One of my first lessons in Teamwork was learnt from my school principal Clement J. Felix of Madras Christian College High School. While returning to India from a trip to the Far East along with my childhood. Everything I needed was always given. My dad was like an ATM. His name was Murugesu Any Time Murugesu. I just had to go and ask for money and would get it. USA changed all that. I had to do my own laundry, my own budgets. After my dad had a heart attack I had to choose between following my dreams of selling water beds and artificial nails, and following my dads passion. One dictum I follow is to put customers before anybody else. Rule No 1 is Customer is always right. Rule No 2: If customer is wrong follow Rule No 1. Every idea is a good idea until proven wrong. There is no such thing as a bad idea. Raw material is money, people are money, waste reduction is money. We follow the 4H principle in our orgnaisation. Honesty, Holistic respect , harmony and humility these are non negotiable for us. What I learnt from the LMI program is you can achieve anything you want in your life as long as you dream it, as long as you affirm it, as long as you chase it and as long as you measure it. Have the courage to enter a business when your heart says so and the courage to exit when things go wrong. Even a correct decision made too late is a wrong decision. Success is about leading with vision and not with supervision. Till I got married I had only one vision which was - I need to be successful, I need to have money, I need a car. Fortunately my wife shared my vision She is like a pair of contact

Our customer satisfaction programs revealed that a lot of the driving is done by the customers drivers. So offered a Drivers Satisfaction Program. We would call them, ask them for their feedback. The cheapest way of knowing what was wrong with the car was to ask the drivers. It was the most powerful consultancy we could get Thinking out of the box is a big thing for us and is constantly practiced. We also set new benchmarks in infrastructure, in no premium policies, fresh incentive policies and maintained complete transparency because of which our customers became our brand ambassadors. Post 2000 his group saw a lot of diversisfication. A lot of team members were growing too big for us and we couldnt afford them any more. So we started new businesses for them and made them partners. We spun off a lot of things and became franchisees for - Tommy Hilfiger, Bennetton, FCML and Nautica etc and thats how we diversified into all these new areas. He summed up quoting his late father Murugesu who said one didnt need an MBA to run a business but an MBWA which was Management By Walking Around and enquiring after the well being of ones employees. Earlier MMA President Mr C K Ranganathan welcomed the Lakshmanan also participated.

ON THE RECORD A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India

'My toughest decision as president was returning the Office of Profit Bill to Parliament'
Posted online: Monday, September 03, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose term as president came to an end recently, not only left the imprint of his personality on the presidency, he also became one of the nations most beloved public figures. In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7s Walk the Talk, Kalam talks about being a pro-active president. And, as a scientist who was involved with Pokhran II, he explains his views on Indias nuclear deal with the U.S. Excerpts . . . My guest this week is the man who has redefined the presidency, one of our most popular presidents ever, one of the most popular Indians of our times -- former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, or now, just Citizen Kalam. Citizen or Prof Kalam. As happy to be a citizen as a president, and as happy to be in this modest place in Delhi Cantonment? Yes, this is a beautiful place. After the Rashtrapati Bhavan? They have made it very liveable. The environment's excellent. And there are as many birds (as in Rashtrapati Bhavan). It's as though all the peacocks (of Rashtrapati Bhavan) have come here. I think they follow your wishes and directions. So tell me, Sir, your first thoughts after five years in the very onerous, privileged position of President of India. My first thoughts . . . you know, before reaching the Rashtrapati Bhavan, I was teaching. So almost it's a re-entry phenomenon. Like a missile's re-entry? Like the re-entry phenomenon. I immediately went, met students, took a class on nano sites, nano technology, faced a lot of questions. It was a beautiful experience. Then I went to a rural university, the Gandhigram University. It's a beautiful thing, seeing people and how they live there. The university builds earning capacity in students. I talked to students. They were unique students, because for them it was education with a purpose. I was away for five days and then I came back to Delhi, and Delhi is a very busy place for me. Yesterday, I saw people from a freedom society in Pune -- young people, college and high-school students, nearly 30 people. You know why they came? Why? They wanted me to come and settle down in Pune. They sent me 10,000 cards. Very creative people. I have never seen such a creative group of people. So each one, two or three of them joined together and organised a programme. Some were interested in how to educate those who cannot read or write. Some were interested in how to clean up riverbeds, some in how to remove people's pain. Very constructive work they were doing. All they have to arrange now is a bunch of peacocks and Dr Kalam will get to Pune as well.

Of course I have to go there as well. This was a new way in which they came to invite me, and I had a beautiful interaction with them yesterday. Today, of course, I went through my favourite task -- researching on mentally challenged children. But you were never confined to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. You were never confined by any ceremony as well. You always managed to reach out. Yes. In fact, if I remember, the first trip you made after taking over as the Rashtrapati was to Gujarat (after the 2002 riots). You remember that. You called the killings very gruesome. For a new president, this was a very significant decision. Tell us something more about the thought process (behind that decision). Tell us what happened. I was thinking where they came from, the differences between people. One reason is economic weakness, which is why I'm always advocating economic prosperity. As economic prosperity comes in, you find that differences in society, value systems, differences in ways of thinking, differences in action will all converge on the positive side. This is the impression I got. You cannot have a society that has one side that's prosperous and another that's below the poverty line. The vision was: how do we lift up the 220 million people who are below the poverty line. But your decision to go to Gujarat as a president was unusual. What made you think of doing it? Because that was the current problem. When I went there, there was a great debate going on, and great suffering was present everywhere. But anyway the wound is healing now. Let us not get more into the problem. But I definitely realised that our billion-strong democracy, multireligious, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural, is a very rare society. Nowhere in the world will you see a billion democratic people together. So it's a unique system we have. So when you did that, did you face a dilemma: as a president, should I do this? There was a lot of politics around Gujarat at that time. Normally, I consult my own thinking capacity and I also have good friends around. So we had a brainstorming session. Then we felt that at that time visiting Gujarat was a very important decision. And I did that and I didn't repent for that because I was in a position to see people, see the leadership. And finally I was also able to see that the repair process was progressing. What was the reaction from Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee (who was then the prime minister) and his government? For they were on the defensive on Gujarat. One good thing is that, whether it was Vajpayee and his regime or Manmohan (Dr Manmohan Singh, the current prime minister) and his regime, I was at home with both of them. Periodically, he (Vajpayee) would come and brief me. And during his time, a lot of things happened. I worked closely with him and also with Manmohan Singhji. Each of them has a unique core competence. I was in a position to work with both of them. And they would never see you as a political being anyway. I don't know, but I felt they looked on me as a fellow with knowledge. 'This guy thinks differently' -- that's how they thought of me. So sometimes not being a politician can be useful . Well, as president, my experience in these five years is that it's not a question of whether you are a politician or a non-politician. You should be a good human being, with logic, with knowledge.

 But you need to be politically aware. Well, that took me only six months. After all, the Constitution of India is a good book that I could read. I was aware of the Constitution, so it didn't take me much time. And you must have come to know all the political figures as they came trooping into the Rashtrapati Bhavan? It's a continuous process, and after some time, I felt I didn't have any disadvantage (in not coming from a political background). But five years of that experience . . . has it also made you a bit of a politician ? Well, I will say that when I entered the Rashtrapati Bhavan, I had a plan of action, a roadmap that India should become an economically developed nation. When after five years I return to my original mission, I feel that India has to become an economically developed nation and its people should have a value system. So you will have seen that, in the last few years, I was promoting a value system. The reason I asked you this was, when it came to your succession, a new debate came in: that a president should be a politician and a vice-president needn't be a political figure. Do you think these criteria are valid? These are all old, outdated ideas. You see, my feeling is that you have to see if the president has the capacity to contribute to the nation's vision, the nation's core, the nation's aim. That's what should be the criterion. And from that, all aspects have to converge. So it doesn't matter if the president is a politician or not. No, I don't think it (being or not being a politician) is a very important criterion. I have studied all the previous presidents and their lives. Before me there were ten presidents. In the first few months (in office), I studied what each one of them has done. Each one of them has contributed uniquely. They have brought core competencies. Someone brought political competence, someone brought judicial competence, someone brought educational competence, and someone who started off from the labour force brought core competence from there. We are all standing on the shoulders of some very experienced people. That's how I looked at it. So what core competence do you think will Pratibha Patil bring to the Rashtrapati Bhavan? Well, that she will know better. The new president will know what she can contribute. Definitely, as a lady, she may have many things to contribute, for 50 per cent of the people are women. She can uniquely contribute something for women, women's rights, women's development, or the whole nation's development. We have met many times, but one memory that sticks in my mind is when I was meeting Mr Gujral (former prime minister I.K. Gujral) and you were standing outside 7 Race Course Road holding a bunch of files, waiting to meet the prime minister. When I returned half an hour later, you were still waiting with those files. I was apologetic and I asked you why you were waiting. And you said, 'These files are on important decisions. I will find one moment with the prime minister.' I asked if some new missiles were going up. And you said, 'Some of my scientists' promotions have been held up.' You've dealt with the political system at that level. And suddenly you came and sat on top of the political-constitutional system. What were your biggest surprises in the Rashtrapati Bhavan? Surprise for me? You know it's a beautiful place. The whole place is beautiful, everything was smiling . . . the flowers were smiling, the trees were smiling, the birds were smiling. There are 11 gardens. Five years for me was a beautiful experience.

 And in the job, what did you discover about the political and constitutional system that you did not see as a scientist? I know that finally almost all bills have to come to Rashtrapati Bhavan for approval. Many appointments, very important appointments, are made by the Rashtrapati Bhavan. I realised after some time -- in a few months -- that you can make a change, after all, if you are friendly with the government, the cabinet, the prime minister, the Parliament. And I had full freedom to put forth my views in Parliament. You can push the envelope if they respect you. I don't follow you. You can push at the boundaries of the president's conventional powers if they respect you. Yes. If you know each other, they will hear you. And definitely, I discussed many points with the prime minister. Sometimes I put forth in Parliament some vehemently new ideas, new thoughts. You made the statement about the need to go in for a two-party system and it did ruffle some feathers. Tell us a bit about that. Well, it's a well-known system. The fewer the number of parties, the faster the decision-making process. This was a very obvious thing that I was promoting. And it's very important to promote development in politics. So you don't regret having said that. No, no, I don't. Because I believe in the development of politics. You know what that is? Development politics means . . . I know the 70%-30% theory. No, no, that's politics equals political politics plus development politics. So for a nation to go for development, 70 per cent of the time the political leadership should be working on that. But the two-party system is vital. So when you were criticised for having said that, what was your reaction? This is a democracy and there will be criticism. The only thing you have to see is whether or not there's logic in the criticism. And if there's logic in it, sometimes you have to learn from it. But I didn't find it. You didn't find logic in that criticism? This is a time of coalition governments and small parties have become very powerful. But it cannot remain like that. For a democratic India, I visualise that eventually, a two-party, at most a three-party, system will evolve. It has to come. It's a natural process. Did you anticipate this reaction (the criticism), particularly from the Left? Yes. When I said two parties, it's obvious that when there are so many parties . . . how will they take it? Naturally there will be criticism. There's nothing wrong with criticism. When you look for criticism, you will get the truth out of it (the process). So you made this statement about a two-party system consciously. Yes. When I make a statement, I think and verify it before putting it forth. And it was from the heart.

But it's going to be there (the two-party system is going to happen). In India , we are going through the process. One shouldn't be scared of losing certain parties in the interest of the nation. The nation is bigger than any individual or party system. Or any ideology? Even ideology. Everyone has to work for the nation. The nation is the important component; you can't subjugate the nation. The day you subjugate the nation, the party will collapse and the individual will collapse. That's why you were the president who never let somebody else write your script all the time. Of course. But I consulted a number of people. I have a virtual system through which I'm electronically connected (to lots of people). I know that. For example, the Bihar issue. You will ask me that question. Yes, I was just getting to that. You know, on the Bihar issue, when I was in Russia , in Moscow . . . so far I have gone to 16 countries but I'm always electronically connected. These are not the days when you have to make phone calls, materials have to be transported. Now files are transferred electronically. I discuss through conferences if there are any requirements. So when I am to take a decision -wherever I am -- I have arrived at the correct way of thinking before taking a decision. So you were convinced about the decision. Yes, I am convinced. Because I had some doubts, I asked the prime minister. I called him twice and then (took the decision). But Sir, what was your reaction when the Supreme Court judgment on the matter had some unflattering remarks? Well, you see, when even the Supreme Court gives a judgment, you know, there are two views. When the Supreme Court gave a judgment, it said that certain things should have been done. But my feeling is, for whatever it's worth, I felt that once I've taken a decision, it's a decision. And you don't regret it now. No, not at all. Definitely not, because I have given proper thought to the matter. This isn't like . . . you know there was cartoon by Abu Abraham in The Indian Express, of President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed in the bathtub, saying, 'If there are any more ordinances, they can wait.' Not like that. No. All the information flows electronically and you can get it and this is what happened. Tell me, in five years as the president, what was the toughest moment, the toughest decision? The toughest decision . . . yes, it was the Office of Profit Bill. When I saw it had come to me for approval, I felt I had to return it to Parliament. This was the first time I had to do that. Previously, an ordinance on the People's Representation Act came to me during Vajpayee's time. I returned it to the cabinet. That's a normal process. I returned it with minor corrections, and the second time, I signed it. But this one, the Office of Profit Bill, came to me directly from Parliament and I sent it back to Parliament. I knew I was doing something for the first time. But I had to do that. That was the toughest decision.

 Did it give you sleepless nights? Normally I go to bed very late, so there was no problem. So did anything else give you a sleepless night? Well, I have this habit of weighing the pros and cons and going into details before I take a decision. But once I take a decision, the chapter is closed. There's no point in repenting. If you have not analysed something and given time and thought to it, it's a different matter. But if you have given it proper thought before deciding, I think it means that the issue is closed. And you should leave it at that? Yes. So at the end of the day were you able to close the chapter? There was a lot of discussion in the media. People were aware of what was happening. But Sir, could it have also cost you a second term? Well, I don't care about it. That's not the issue. What I am concerned about are the people. The people were after me (for a second term). People said there was so much information -directly, indirectly, in the electronic media, the print media, there were so many polls etc. So I had to consider that (a second term). Do you regret that the word went out that President Kalam says if there's consensus, he will contest. No. Consensus. I stick to that. In fact the way the word came out was that you were saying, 'If there's surety of winning, I will contest.' No, no. If there's no consensus, then the Rashtrapati Bhavan will become a political centre. That I didn't want at any cost. But if there was consensus, would you have contested? Of course. I said that. But the issue was that there was tremendous demand. How do you define consensus? Would you say the UPA, the NDA and the Left, all together? No, consensus means that political parties have to come to an understanding. Otherwise, the Rashtrapati Bhavan will become a political centre, which is not good. So you don't think that, in a way, you paid a price for rejecting the Office of Profit Bill? For me, entry and re-entry are happy events. So you have not thought about it even for a moment. No, the day after I left the Rashtrapati Bhavan, I started working on what I loved. You also did a couple of more significant things. You also returned the files of some important judicial appointments. I have done many things like that.

 But on those judicial decisions, what were the kind of doubts you had, and how difficult was it for you to return those files? There are many processes involved before the appointment of a judge. There are collegiums, the papers have to go to the Supreme Court, the prime minister, and then they come to me. Sometimes, I directly consult the concerned authorities. Sometimes, I have felt the need to seek more details. Normally, I ask for more details, that's all. But Sir, when these files came back to you and you had to sign them, did you feel arm-twisted? You know, (the feeling that) 'I'm not convinced but I have no choice.' You see, after all, I have to follow some constitutional requirements. After all, you have to see that certain things move. According to the Constitution, I cannot put up obstacles. But I can give my view and there's a provision for that. I can return a bill to Parliament, I can return a bill to the cabinet. The idea is to give your advice. In one appointment, the collegium was changed a bit. You know, other people's opinion was sought. Sometimes they listen. Sometime I directly discuss the matter with the concerned authorities. Many good changes, too, took place. So I passed them (the papers). Did it not bother you that the appointments finally happened (despite your sending back the papers)? The good aspect is that you have made a point. Now, it's for the system to see what the impact is. As president, I indicated certain issues. Now, it's for them to give their view. But Sir, you had objections and still the appointments happened. At that point, did you wish the Constitution gave the president a little more power? The Constitution, you know, was created in 1950. The Constitution has withstood the test of time -- 57 years in a democratic nation. So I felt we have to allow what it says. Also, in between, there was a constitutional review as well. I believe the Constitution has withstood the test of time. So even if the president sometimes feels a little helpless, there's no need to give the president more powers. Most of the times, if the president reads the Constitution (he can understand the situation). And there's a provision to allow him to talk directly to the concerned agencies. You can invite them, discuss with them, share your thoughts, you ideas. And then they will tell you the problems. So you take a decision after that. Which constitutional expert did you lean on the most? Oh, I will not tell you, because I consulted a number of them. If it was a scientific matter, I consulted a scientist. If it was a judicial matter, I consulted judges. I went through a continuous process of consultations. Name a couple of them (the constitutional experts). Their price will go up tomorrow. They are all rich lawyers. No, I have consulted so many of them. It's not just one or two. Again, regarding the political system, Sir. I keep coming back to it because I am a student of the political system, just as you are a student of the entire universe. A man dealing with the political system! Since you mentioned it, how long have you been in it?

 No, I am a journalist. For how long have you been one? Nearly two and half decades. According to you, as a media expert, what are the dynamics of the political system in the last two and a half decades? I think the biggest change is that, two and a half decades back, one party used to get re-elected all the time. Now almost every party gets defeated all the time. That's the biggest change in the dynamics of politics. The politician's mindset has changed accordingly. That is, can we say they are learning that people decide on the basis of performance? Are you convinced this is happening? I am convinced this is happening. That means it's a good thing. People are able to decide if governments have performed or not. So what was your biggest surprise when you learnt to deal with the political system? A good surprise and a bad one. See, one thing I found was that, generally, people rate the political system as very bad. But it's not true. One surprise I had was that in the political system, too, you had good human beings, their intentions were very good. I worked in two sets of political systems, and in both of them, I found that there are very good human beings with good intentions. They may have constraints in carrying out the task, but, definitely, there was purity. If I may use your language, does our system have a critical mass of good people? We are still touching the critical mass. The youth, particularly, are coming up in a big way. In Parliament, I have found that suddenly a lot of young people have come in. Also qualified people. They can make a change in the political system. That is why, when I gave my farewell address, and also my national address, I said that, for the nation, its vision is very important and that you have to execute the vision and maintain the value system. Confidence, too, is very important. An individual's confidence means the nation's confidence. These words were purely addressed to young politicians. What was the negative discovery? The negative was: Parliament has to function. There may be a lot of differences, but Parliament has to function. When the Rajya Sabha or the Lok Sabha are in session, people watch, particularly young people. Those in Parliament have to be role models for them. Adjournments and breakdowns -- that's not a good impression. No, that's obviously not. Those in Parliament have to show the nation that it is a great institution. After all, an individual can give a nation a vision, but finally, it is Parliament that has to act on it. So those in Parliament have a great responsibility. So the negative side you saw was the parliamentary logjam? Parliament has to function smoothly and perform on national development. And the media? The media is a great partner. The other day at a media conference, I had said that the media is for a billion people.

 But did the media also surprise you? Even the Rashtrapati Bhavan became a target of speculation? Political reporting, as we call it. Does it surprise you or worry you or make you angry? My only view about the media, print and electronic, is that it has not graduated as a media for a billion people. More than 7,000 million people live in 6 lakh villages. But most of the time, what you see in the media is all about the urban political system. Now you have to graduate to representing a billion people. Some regional newspapers are doing well. Another issue on which you will be asked questions many times is the Afzal Guru issue, which we will come to. But there's the larger issue of the death penalty. You said that as a president, you can have only one view. After July 25 (when your term ended), you said, you could have another. No, I didn't set a target (date) like that. I want to tell you that in the Afzal Guru case, the government has to process the papers. It involves a lot of processes. So it's not as if it came to you and you kept sitting on it. It's under process and had to come to me. But many cases (of reviews of capital punishment) have come to me. When I studied them, I found that there are two issues. One is that the people involved all come from the lower strata. I was astonished to see that. They are mostly poor people. Then, I have asked for some details, how things have turned out the way they did for them. I also remember that of the 220 cases of capital punishment that were processed recently, nearly 70 per cent were not eligible for capital punishment across the Atlantic Ocean. So you also studied this internationally? What I felt is that we need a national debate. After all, we are in a knowledge society. India is graduating into a developed, knowledge society. In such a situation, we should see if India should have capital punishment or not. We have to decide. A detailed debate is essential, both nationally, and in Parliament. And on which side of the debate does Citizen Kalam belong? I will tell you as soon as the debate starts. The debate can start now, and I can guess that you are on the compassionate side. After all, in these things, when the president signs (an order) and a life is taken away, it's a painful process. When you do it, you have to do it correctly. Your conscience should say, 'Yes.' In one case, I did (sign papers for a death sentence to be carried out). That's the Kolkata rape-and-murder case. Yes, but my feeling is that the death penalty is a fit issue for a national debate. And would you say that until the national debate takes place . . . No, that's for the president to decide. But what I say is that we must independently go through the debate process. Nationally, as well as in Parliament. Sir, as a citizen, do you think that it's better more executions are not cleared until the debate is settled. No, I feel that both are independent processes. There's a decision-making authority (in Rashtrapati Bhavan) now.

 So the new president can take her own decisions, but at the same time a debate is required. Yes. Should the debate be only on the question of the morality of the death sentence, or should it be undertaken because it's mostly the poor who get it? We have the ambition to become an economically developed nation. We are entering a knowledge society. How should a knowledge society, a developed society, view capital punishment? That's a big question. On the one hand there are European countries which abhor capital punishment, and on the other, there is a growing knowledge society like China, which just executed its equivalent of the FDA chief. No, I am looking at democratic nations. In Europe they have already done away with capital punishment. In the U.S., some states have capital punishment, some don't. That's why I said the time has come for a debate. You are right. Here, we only have a debate when a well-to-do person gets involved. For instance, the Sanjay Dutt case. So many poorer people have been punished in the Mumbai blasts case and there has been no talk. There's a debate only when a celebrity is involved. There is a judicial process. We cannot question that here. But is it painful for the president to take away someone's life? Yes, in fact it's really a painful process. Because finally, with his signature, a man's life is gone. I feel that the time has now come to look at this. For five years you talked about entry and re-entry, about India becoming a superpower. When you took office, we had tested a nuclear bomb for the second time in Pokhran, missiles were going up. Isn't it wonderful that your re-entry into citizenry has coincided with India's achievement of nuclear legitimacy? I don't know what you mean by nuclear legitimacy. I will say (we have become) a nuclear weapons state. India graduated in May 1998 as a nuclear weapons state. Whether some people agree or not doesn't matter. What has happened now? What does the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal do? Where does it take India 's status from what we were in 1998? I have a definite view on that. The whole agreement is focused on uranium shortage and also the fact that we want to open up our programmes internationally so that we will get co-operation. This is one issue. But I have a feeling. I have told atomic scientists they should immediately launch a thorium reactor process, for we have thorium in abundance. Our scientists have already begun work. It's a tough area for research because thorium is not fissile material; you have to convert it into fissile material. That means you need fast- breeder reactors; we need a number of them. I believe that in five to seven years India will have thorium-based nuclear reactors for power generation. And do we see Prof Kalam getting involved with that research? No. There are many nuclear scientists and they are doing fantastic work. So all my best wishes to them. Whenever they call me, I will go to them. But this deal, the 123 agreement, is it good for India ? What is your view?

My feeling is that, given the shortage of uranium, and the fact that we have a number of nuclear reactors based on uranium, it looks to me that there's a logical conclusion. But that does not prevent us from seeking self-reliance in thorium-based nuclear reactors. This is what I'll say to young scientists: 'Let's pull all our might and come out with a thorium-based reactor.' Sir, if I may persist with this, do you see the deal as a deal about energy or about strategic interests? I feel it's about energy. After all, our nuclear scientists have a vision. Every year, they want to add about 1,000 MW. So in that continuation, by 2020, they want to have 20,000 MW. They want to graduate to India having 20,000 MW by adding 1,000 MW every year. So the whole vision is about how to get 1,000 MW every year

THE IDEA EXCHANGE Kapil Dev at the EXPRESS Nikal do seniors ko and lets see what the juniors do. You cant say Rahul, Sachin, Ganguly are the only ones Posted online: Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email Kapil Dev Nikhanjs debut in Faisalabad (Pakistan) 30 years ago was a watershed for Indian cricket in more ways than one. A medium-pacer at a time when the waning spin trio was Indias claim to cricketing fame. Kapil Dev went on to captain the team and to lead the team to its only World Cup win. Named the Indian Cricketer of the Century by Wisden in 2002, at the end of his cricketing career, he was known as a fighter and an all-rounder, more than simply a medium-pacer. He has since taken to golf, and continues to run a successful restaurant chain in Chandigarh. He has also managed the Indian cricket team for a year. The Express team was witness to his sharp and incisive take on the state of play today as India agonises over the teams performance in the World Cup this year in the West Indies. With his glorious sense of humour, Kapil Dev regaled us with stories from his playing days and discussed much more than cricket about Indians, politics, our approach to administration. In fact it was like being there 24 years ago, when he smashed Zimbabwe for 175. Unbeaten. MINI KAPOOR: Do you think we over-reacted as a country to Indias exit from World Cup? No, I think we are known to react in this manner. Over-reaction is something you dont expect. If you ask me, I think the reaction was what I had thought it would be. They played poor, horrible cricket. But why the surprise? I think we failed in our judgment. We were expecting too much from them. They dont have the capability, or, perhaps, they only have it on paper. I dont wish to hit anybody below the belt, but I think there are people who are just going through the motions. MINI KAPOOR: Any names? It wont be right to point fingers at anybody. When a team faces a defeat like that, everybody, including the BCCI and former cricketers like us are equally responsible. COOMI KAPOOR: Would you compare our cricketers to. . . dogs who are content with their bones . . . are they too satisfied? If a dog has a bone it wont allow anybody to come close. I think they didnt have the urge to perform. I just visited Kolkata and I was pleasantly surprised. When you look back, one chief minister occupied the post for 25 years. The growth wasnt good. But in last three years, Kolkatas growth has been unbelievable. Fresh blood can change things. Talking about Indian cricket, the younger lot looks up to

stars in the team. If these stars dont have the right attitude, it sends the wrong message. What we need today is that the younger lot come out and push the seniors to give their best. SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: Following up from what you just said, the CPI (M) did eventually manage to ask Jyoti Basu to leave. Do you think the cricketing establishment can ever gather the courage to ask Sachin Tendulkar to leave? To me, my country is more important than anything else. I love my cricket team. Tendulkar, Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar or Kapil Dev or anybody who comes in the way of crickets progress should be kicked out. SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: But do you think the present cricket establishment, as it functions, as we tend to react to cricket, do you think we can ask Sachin to take a break, like the Australians asked Steve Waugh to step down from the ODI team? If it is required and he doesnt understand, and they cannot do it, then the Board is too weak. The cricket board is weak. Betterment of the team is the priority. The game is bigger than any player. And the nations interests are paramount. JAYANTH JACOB: Were you happy with the composition of the team India sent to the World Cup. Wasnt there too much reliance on old players? If I look back, the answer is No. The team had a blend of seniors and youngsters, just as every team would want to have. But what you need is fresh legs, those who can take charge and fight. The seniors have to tell the youth that, Look, this is the way we worked and reached the top. Now it is your time to take the lead. But then seniors have to perform when the situation demands. If they crack, they have no business to be in the team. ANANDA MAJUMDAR: When you are captaining a team like India, how important is it to be a tactician and a motivational captain? I think up to a stage, a tactician is required. But I was not so much into computers. I was basically a field player. Everybody has his way of doing things. The method doesnt matter, what matters is that you win the match. You may have a hundred computers and tacticians, but at the end of the day the boys have to get runs and take wickets. ANANDA MAJUMDAR: So what you are suggesting is that it is very important to be a motivational captain rather than a good tactician. No, everybody cannot be the same. I cannot expect everybody to be working like me. Cricket is a beautiful and very different game. It is as much a team game as it is an individual game. Tell me how many times has Sachin scored a ODI hundred 80 per cent will say 40, 35, 38, 42. But if we take his ODI centuries, how many times has India won. You dont have a ready answer. So what is more important, the individual or the team. Thats the beauty of this game. Even if India loses, we ask, how many runs he got, how many wickets he took. How many times we won as a team is important. A great player knows how many times he went and won the match for his country. SUJIT BHAR: If we talk of performance-based incentives they cant be worked out in a team game, it cant be worked out on the basis of individual performance in a team game. How do you think performance-based incentives should be given?

We cannot blindly copy the Australians or West Indians. Our culture is different, our way of thinking is different. Look at the Australians, their traditions are different. There, grandfathers play cricket on Saturdays and Sundays. Do you see that happening here? You go for a movie as a source of entertainment here. In Australia and America, people take their grandchildren for mountain climbing, river rafting, but here we would rather make them go for tuitions! We are an intelligent people, but do not have the right body. Out of one billion people, why cant we produce a single player? Not even 200,000 play sports. Sixty per cent dont get square meals. Out of the people who get their meals, 50 per cent are vegetarians. Out of that 50 per cent, 30 per cent are rich people who dont want to step out of AC rooms. When somebody says 100 crore hai, I say, kya 100 crore, 70 per cent live in villages. I dont think we ever face the reality. MANINI CHATTERJEE: In the last five or ten years since (the arrival of ) 24-hour TV, the growth of consumerism and marketing, far too much money is now involved in cricket. Has that adversely affected the game? Dont give them money and they will change their style of play! If that works then change things, but personally speaking, I dont think that works. I have played with them and I dont think they will change. Incentives, on the other hand, can get you better performance. Theres nothing wrong in it. I did one advertisement for Birla Sun Life Insurance, but I see myself 365 days a year. The ad is running 24 hours on channels. But I didnt give more than six days in a year to the ad. Does Sachin spend 365 days doing advertisements? If Dhoni gives 30 days to ads to make his life more secure, whats wrong? Money comes and goes, but the important thing is that the game shouldnt suffer. I dont think money is spoiling cricketers. VIDHI MAINGI: Whenever people say theres too much money in cricket, thats usually a hint towards match fixing and betting. Do you think viewership has taken a downslide because of all these things? Maybe yes and maybe not. I am not sitting here and judging that. You cannot stop individuals from doing wrong. Neither has that been possible in the last 5,000 years nor will that be possible in the next 10,000 years. What is shameful is when everybody starts developing tendencies of corruption. Every IAS officer is not bad, but the odd one will take money. We cant blame everybody for one persons actions. UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: Is it a problem that politicians have taken over administration in cricket? No. Why are cricketers coming into politics? Its not their field. The politicians might as well say, we will go wherever there is politics. It is up to us to see whether we want to have them. AMITABH SINHA: You have spoken about youngsters coming into the team. But where are the youngsters? By this time, players like Yuvraj, Kaif, who started their careers six-seven years back, should have been the backbone of the team. But when we talk about replacing Dravid, we are looking at names like Ganguly and Tendulkar. People like Raina, a lot of other youngsters, either have not performed or they have not been given enough chances. Nikal do seniors ko and lets see what the juniors do. You cant say that Ganguly, Rahul, or Sachin are the only ones till you havent tested Yuvraj with captaincy. But in reality its tough to captain a team with senior players under you. I was a 22-year-old when I was captain. I had a damn tough time handling seniors. Not that they had any ill feelings for me, but I didnt know, as a youngsters, how to treat them. Should I give my seat to them? They had given me orders throughout my cricketing life.

And now suddenly I was required to give orders. What do you do? Plead and request them to take their field positions or shout at them? AMITABH SINHA: Even if we leave the captaincy issue aside, are there youngsters who have a permanent berth in the side? Whoever plays well should stay. Nobody is permanent. A permanent player is one who performs permanently. SHUBHAJIT ROY: Should Tendulkar be dropped ? If you ask me whether to drop Tendulkar, Id say he is a great player and has served the country beautifully. An exceptionally talented cricketer, but unfortunately he has to be dropped one day. But had I made this statement to some sensation-seeking journalists, the headline the next day would have read, Kapil says, drop Sachin Tendulkar and left out the fact that I have said that he is an exceptionally talented cricketer. VRINDA GOPINATH: Who in your view is a perfect cricketer. Nobody. The moment you say you are perfect, its time for you to move out. Somebody asked me who is my favourite captain. I said the heart of Bishan Singh Bedi and the mind of Sunil Gavaskar. SAUBHIK CHAKRABARTI: Your 175 against Zimbabwe in 1983 was not captured on television. Could you tell us about that innings? It was 24 years back. We were in trouble, I batted, we got runs. But if somebody asks me what happened, I dont remember. Do you think Sachin or Dravid or Dhoni would be thinking about money when a genuine fast bowler comes on? They wont even think whether they are married or not. Somebody asked when Vivian Richards hit the ball and it went up, what were you thinking? I said dead. The moment thought comes into your head you are bound to drop the catch. Reflexes take over. I just went in so disgusted and upset. But every time the bowler came in I had to save my wicket. Main out ho gaya to kya hoga? The next ball and I thought I had to stay a longer. SUJIT BHAR: Is doping prevalent nowadays in cricket? Who knows, people might have been doping in our time as well. Who knows, because there was no technology to test for the use of performance enhancing drugs. Ham bhi suna karte the ki few cricketers kash lagate hain. Doping has been happening for thousands of years. Chor, chor nahi hai, jab tak woh pakda na jaye. SHUBHAJIT ROY: Greg Chappells coaching has been a bone of contention since the beginning. There is a view that he was not happy with the composition of the team and his choice was not allowed to go to the final team. What is your view? If he was not happy, he should have resigned. From the Indian teams point of view, they should have taken the best out of him. We are paying so much money, get the best out of him and say good bye. He must have something to teach us. He is forthright, the way he comes and talks. We are not a very straightforward people. We have big egos. These people dont have egos. UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: Who is the best batsman you have ever bowled to, and the best bowler you ever faced? Vivian Richards is the finest and the toughest I have ever bowled to, because he was ready to take challenges. Ninety per cent of the rest played me quietly and waited for my spell to finish. But

Richards was one player who said, Dont let him go, lets attack him. The best bowler? Whoever got me out (laughs). In my view, Sachin Tendulkar is the most talented cricketer and Ravi Shastri the most intelligent. SHUBHAJIT ROY: Should we have an Indian coach whenever Chappell goes? Whoever does the best job for my country should coach India. India also sends its expertise abroad in medicine, IT etc. What if they were to send them back? The world has become a very small place. As far as it is mutually beneficial, you should not hesitate. I will not doubt the coach unless he fails repeatedly. SUJIT BHAR: You have been playing another game. You have also seen the non-cricketing side of cricket. Do you think that with this much money going into cricket, something should be given to some individual sport, where we have achieved world recognition. The Indian establishment has to understand a simple thing that our body structures are not suited for all games. But even then we follow fast and hard games rather than skill games. We can be very good in table tennis, badminton, where skill is required. Speed is not our forte. You cannot find any cricketer more wristy or stylish than an Indian, Pakistani, or Sri Lankan cricketer because the subcontinent is blessed with the art of wrist work. We can top games like squash, tennis, badminton, table tennis, which require wrist work, but we dont promote games correctly. ADITI NIGAM: We have seen great all-rounders like you, Hadlee, Imran Khan, in the eighties and nineties, but after that, cricket has not seen any great all-rounders. What is the reason? Oh, there were hardly any all-rounders earlier also. Its a tough job. It happens in a group. I was not an all-rounder, purely a bowler and learnt batting slowly. Imran was purely a bowler. Botham was a true all-rounder. Gary Sobers was a true all-rounder. I think competition brings the best out of us. See Warne and Murli. They talk about their game and their performance improves. MINI KAPOOR: Who would you like to see lift the World Cup. Your favourite team? I think I would like to see New Zealand lift the cup. I feel they have it in them. Sure, the best team should win. But as far as my feelings go, apart from India, if New Zealand pick the cup its good for the game. G.S. VIVEK: I have spent time at the National Cricket Academy, of which you are the chairman. I get a feeling they are getting it too technology-oriented for under-19 and under-16 youngsters. Dont you think cricket should be kept simple at the early stages? Let them learn their spin, swing, drives and not get too technical about their body mass index etc? In a way yes, but then the young age is the best to learn. At ten years you can learn ten languages overnight. Education and knowledge about the game is important. When you play for the country, you have to know all the rules. Today, cricket is not just a bat and ball game. Knowing the rules is important. editor@expressindia.com THE IDEA EXCHANGE Jagdish Khattar at the EXPRESS A Maruti 800 is as safe as a Mercedes, if not safer

Posted online: Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Maruti Udyog, is always a man on the move walking, talking, studying and meeting people and staff. He was with the IAS before being sent as a government nominee to Maruti, which was then a public sector company. He went on to become the MD eight years ago. His tenure at Indias largest carmaker has seen the low of a Rs 269crore loss in 2001 and the dramatic turnaround last year when the firm posted profits of Rs 1,500 crore. Khattar met Express journalists for lunch and spoke on the company he runs and much more. Express Business Editor, Gautam Chikermane, was in the chair. JAGDISH KHATTAR: I think that loss was the best thing that could have happened to Maruti. Because till then we were a dominant player and dominance brings about a certain amount of complacency. That loss really shook us up and we took advantage of that. And I think it hurt the ego of our employees, too. I remember we had a meeting of 200 of our supervisors. We met them in the morning and put them into 10 groups and asked them how they could bring about improvement in productivity and cut down costs. We said we (the directors) would come in the evening and you give your suggestions. The people came with brilliant ideas as to how to improve productivity and cut costs. We complimented them and asked them to implement what they had suggested and this happened across the company in various areas. So we started with a loss and used that opportunity to turn the company around. And after that we had a strike. Seventy per cent of our workers were away for three months. But on the third day, we were producing at 100 per cent capacity. I went to the vendors and told them: if we stop production, you lose business. They sent their own people. We have a trainee scheme and we recalled those trainees because they had worked for 10 months with us. Two thousand people stayed within the factory for three months. We had Daler Mehndi coming in the evenings for music and recreation for the people working on the floor. After that, we had two Voluntary Retirement Schemes through which 2000 people left. So it was a good wake-up call and thats why we are here today. C JAYANTI: For decades you produced just your flagship Maruti 800 and you did not face any serious competition. But now, other carmakers are coming out with new versions. So are you feeling threatened? Will you come out with a Rs 1-lakh electric car? For the last eight years, we have been threatened every year. And we have managed a 50 per cent marketshare for that period. But every year, new threats come and we equip ourselves for that. As for the Rs 1-lakh car, I dont know how we get into the picture. Someone is producing it and someone is going to sell it. Its my view that today a person who wants to buy a regular car will buy a car. Today a motorcycle costs Rs 40,000 and that is our opportunity. There are 60 million two-wheelers on the road. But there are only 8 million cars. I tell my marketing people that we can sell another 52 million cars. Whether we do it or not, whether consumers can afford to upgrade is a different question. GAUTAM CHIKERMANE: The question is that you began as the small common mans car with the first Maruti 800 in 1984 and today that mandate is being taken away by Tata Motors. So where do you stand? The mandate is likely to be taken away but its not taken away yet. We have talked to our Japanese partners and they say we dont want to produce a car which is known as a Rs 1-lakh car to the customer. TENZING LAMSANG: One side of the automobile story is Marutis 50 per cent marketshare and on the other side is the poor state of the public transport system. How much of this is contributing to the sales of cars from companies like yours? And as a former public servant, what do you think can be done to revamp the public transport system?

I am an Indian first and for me public transport comes before my cars. And I will give you my own example on how it can be fixed. In 1986-88, I was chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Transport Corporation and we had the same sort of mess losses leading to all sorts of problems. You went to the ministers and they would not allow increase in fares. What did we do? When I joined we had 5,000 buses and 60,000 employees. Each bus requires 10. So we had 10,000 surplus workers. You could not retrench them. What was the alternative? Add 1000 buses and they get absorbed. Buying 10,000 buses at that time required Rs 40 crore. I went to the Finance Secretary and said give me Rs 4 crore because I could take Rs 36 crore as loan and I will give you Rs 5 crore as a return in 12 months. He said you are joking because no PSU takes money and returns it. So he called his experts and I again said you give me Rs 4 crore. I said would put 1,000 buses on the road. My surplus workers would be absorbed for whom I am already paying anyway. How will the state get Rs 5 crore? He will get road tax, passenger tax which the state is not getting because there is a leakage in the way the private firms are doing it. He called his experts, who said I was right and I got Rs 4 crore. I took 60 days credit from Tata and Leyland because then it was a soft market. Before I paid them, my buses were on the road. How did I tackle fare increase? None of those buses was an ordinary bus as I had made them into semi-deluxe buses and got them painted white and blue, instead of green. Seats had little more cushion and ticket price was 25 per cent higher. The minister then called me and asked me what I was doing. I said I had not increased the prices of the regular buses. These are semi-deluxe buses and the consumer has a choice. If he does not want to pay 25 per cent more he can go to the regular bus. We did 350 km a day and our average improved. Within a year we were making a profit. Profit is not a bad thing as long as you reinvest it. If you dont make profit as a transport corporation then you dont do proper maintenance. So this problem can also be solved in innovative ways. There are solutions to these problems but in bureaucracy they get lost. VERGHESE GEORGE: How does decision-making happen in government and public sector? The IAS and corporate sector are different. IAS is all authority and no accountability. It is all selfimposed. There are IAS officers who take a job and do it as a mission and do it being accountable to themselves. There are lots of them or else the services would not have continued. There are always some percentage of people who are far above others and thats true for any organisation. There is only a small percentage of people around whom the whole organisation works. Here, as a corporate set-up, there is greater accountability and responsibility. Decision-making is much quicker here than in the government. SUMANT BANERJI: In the rush for making Rs 1-lakh cars, are we undermining concerns like safety, eco-friendly technology and quality? We are not a part of that rush. Your question should be to our competitors. We have national norms on safety. Whichever vehicle is introduced in the country should conform to those norms. Nothing prevents competition from selling its car at a price lower than ours even though its cost may be higher. But thats the call it takes in order to enter the market. Its cost may be higher because it has to meet those norms, safety and emission. SUMANT BANERJI: To put it in a global context, 50 years back, companies in the West took a call and introduced features like seat-belts even when there were no norms for it. That was the level of maturity those markets had. India is one of the biggest markets for automobiles but when are we likely to see that amount of maturity in the market here? India is not one of the biggest markets. That impression should be dispelled. We are only a 1 millioncar market. As far as maturity of market is concerned, we dont even have a number of internationalsize companies in India. We may be growing but our volumes are still small and we dont have international-level capacities barring the three companies.

AMANDEEP Shukla: You said that road safety is an important part of your strategy but as an observer, one finds that Maruti 800 and Omni are probably two of the most unsafe cars with almost no safety features. This is the difference between perception and reality. No car can run on the roads unless it meets the safety norms. Maruti 800, according to people who have studied, it is as safe as a Mercedes, if not safer. Some people said if Princess Diana was in an 800, she might have been saved. AMANDEEP Shukla: And what if she was in an Omni van? Same with the Omni. AJAY S SHANKAR: How do you name your models, what is the process behind it? Some of the names like Alto, Wagon R, Esteem, SX4, Swift come from Suzuki. When we introduced Maruti 800, I think our people did not even know that a model name had to be given, so the car got the name from its engine capacity of 800cc. After that we introduced 1000cc and it was called Maruti 1000. I know that when I joined Zen was introduced after a few days and at that time it was decided to have a name for it. So we asked people in marketing to come up with names. One young man from Jamshedpur gave the name Zen. Versa was chosen the same way, a play on the word versatile. NEHA SINHA: Maruti cars have a high theft value. Do you see that as indicative of the desirability of a Maruti car? Yes, very much. A thief would steal a thing which he can sell at a good price. Thats the dilemma we have. We have been called by Lt-Governors and police commissioners saying your cars gets stolen a lot. I told them if nobody wants to steal our competitors cars, what can we do? While we are very happy that there is a demand for this car (in the resale market), we dont want the customers to suffer. So we have brought in immobilizers. SEEMA CHISHTI: How much difference do individuals make to an organisation? Do individuals matter or is it the system that ultimately creates efficiency? The system and people should do it. But you cant deny that individuals make a difference. There is always a small percentage of individuals who are the driving force. Individuals do make a difference but there should not be too many of them or it will create problems for the organisation. N P SINGH: What ails the American car industry? Why are they taking such a beating from the Japanese? I think the Japanese have their eyes to the ground and they tailor-make their products according to the needs of their consumers. In 1976, I saw huge cars as taxis in New York. Going from India where we had Ambassadors, I thought: Such a huge car and four people sitting in the middle with no luggage at the back. The space is all wasted! There were no constraints of fuel efficiency and cost and Americans were living in their own world. The Japanese saw an opportunity there. The tide was changing and Americans did not change. But the consumer can change his mind very quickly. GAUTAM CHIKERMANE: Your tenure gets over in December. Any plans for a second career? You began as a child actor and acted in a film. Could you tell us about that? My experience was interesting. I was studying in Delhi Public School and we had a principal called J D Tytler. He took 12 of us to Maidens Hotel in Delhis Civil Lines and we met an American called Alexander Markin. He spoke to us and asked us to sing in turns as he wanted to check our voice. They

met our father and told him that they wanted to give me a role in a movie Alexander was making on Gandhis principles. The film was called the Gandhi Path. Transcribed by Sumant Banerji. The full text of this conversation is available on www.expressindia.com editor@expressindia.com ON THE RECORD Karan Johar, Filmmaker I make films for Indians living anywhere... Its just that my sensibilities match those of NRIs Posted online: Monday, July 23, 2007 at 0000 hrs Print Email Director, producer, TV host and, above all, an accomplished storyteller. All at the age of 35. Karan Johar is at the forefront of the new generation of filmmakers that has transformed the face of Bollywood cinema in the past decade after the low of the 80s, which Johar calls the worst phase of Indian cinema. In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7s Walk The Talk, Johar talks about the K business, the love and flak he gets for making his brand of happy movies, why he is inseparable from SRK, and explains how being a director feels like playing God Hello, Im Shekhar Gupta and my guest this week is the maker of many stars and a star in his own right, Karan Johar. Welcome to Walk The Talk, Karan. Thank you for having me here. I was going to say very nice to have you. Im so used to saying that. Are you acting or is that a genuine slip? Im so used to interviewing people that it feels strange to be interviewed. Thats why Im asking: Are you making it up? Or was that a genuine slip? It was a genuine slip. Im not such a good actor. Thats a good beginning. Hopefully well make it more interesting. We worked on it. We are creating an inspiring setting for you, the Mumbai skyline. Its fabulous. A little bit of a diet Manhattan, like one of your movies. Actually I have shot in Manhattan but never in Mumbai, strangely. So we can have Shah Rukh Khan or somebody singing a happy song or a sad song here depending on... Yes, maybe. But I think very soon this will not be as empty as it is today. This is the big sea link that is going to be infested with cars. I think in another year.

 And then Karan Johar will be here? Then Ill be here, with Shah Rukh with his arms wide open. A happy movie? Hopefully. I like to make happy movies. Youve sometimes been charged with that, for being too joyful, happy, fantastic, unreal. They call it mush, they call it bubblegum. Ive been called various things. Ive been called, you know, he just makes family films. As if thats a bad thing. Theres been lot of criticism hurled at me. But I have been branded because I have made four films. Joint family films also. Theres a big group photo at the end of it. Well, in the last one, I tried to break the whole family institution. It was my take on marriage and infidelity. Quite successfully. Yes, it had an extreme reaction. There were people who hated it, and people who loved it, and people who felt uncomfortable watching it. But I felt it was a story I had to tell. So I was very happy to tell it in my way. But yes, I have been associated with one kind of film because all the films have started with the letter K, they have four words in it, they have Shah Rukh Khan in it. And invariably they have most often been shot out of the country. So they say Karan Johar makes NRI films. But I always say there is a heart and soul that I contribute to my cinema. I wish people would look at that rather than just the branding. But I believe besides the commercial angle, there is always a convenience angle to NRI films because youve got everybody in one hotel for a fixed number of dates. There is that too. You know, you go for a three-month-long outdoor and its really a great shoot. And you shoot together. No one has anything else to do. So they land up shooting for you. So there is also a convenience issue. But how did this fascination come to be? The letter K well talk about later. But now, lets talk of the NRI setting. Did you figure out that there was going to be this big NRI market? Not at all. I never planned it. It just so happens that my sensibilities match the sensibilities of the viewing audience there. I never planned even when I wrote my first film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It just so happened that it found a huge audience outside of the country. And thereon, every time I made a film, it was basically me. It seemed to have matched the sensibility of an NRI audience. I make films for Indians. They could be living anywhere. They could be living here, they could be living in Bihar. But there is an NRI market now, and very lucrative. Yes, and its very strong. More than an NRI market, there is an emerging non-Asian market. There are Germans, there is a French audience, theres a Polish audience. There is an audience in Korea and Japan that are watching our films and contributing tremendously to the economy of our cinema. And theyre actually loving the soul and the content of (Indian) cinema, which makes me very proud. Also because of the music?

They love the music, they love the visuals. And theres always a happy ending. Almost always. Foreigners like that. But in the last one, there wasnt one happy ending, there were two happy endings. Or three or two-and-a-half? There were lots of happy endings. It had irony attached to the last one. I remember watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham at Cannes with French, Italians, Germans. And they didnt know. They dont have a concept of interval. So when the film stopped and the lights came on, they all walked out. They thought that was the end of the film. How Dark! they said. We didnt think Bollywood was so dark. I said: The films not over yet. We have very in-your-face emotions. We tug at your heart strings. Not like their subtle cinema. Thats what I think attracts them. They feel almost therapeutic after they watch our films. We talked about music. I think one big contributor has been this new bhangra beat. You always have one of those like Shah Rukh Khan in your movies. Indian music is doing very well globally. It has this huge impact everywhere. I know so many people who dont understand the language but they like the beat, the thump of our music And I always have these item numbers. I love larger than life cinema, larger than life visuals, larger than life music. I like energetic music. I always tell music composers who I work with: Dont compose a song that will grow on me slowly. I want that instant appeal. Youre 24 now, are you? No, Im 35. Theres lots of Loreal in my hair because as I said, Im worth it. So what are you going to graduate to now? Im writing a film that requires me to research a fair deal. I cant say its a political film or a social film. Its really a love story, but its definitely got a very strong underlying message. Im writing it with a girl called Shivani Bhatija, who also wrote Kabhi Alvida with me and has also written Fanaa. Im going to start next year. Are you going to do a number five in the K series? Well, K is something Im going to live with. Aapka nam bhi toh K se hai? I was actually Rahul for the first six days of my life. My mother woke up one morning and said, I dont like the name Rahul, I want to change my sons name to Karan. But you dont want a country of one crore all carrying K initials? No no. Im not saying K is great for everyone. But it works for me. A punditji said something that stayed in my head. After that I met Suneeta Menon, whos a very dear friend of mine. Shes my

advisor and guide and philosopher. And she told me: Stick to K and its always going to bring you lots of luck. So what else is buzzing your head right now? We know your 35-year-old wise head buzzes all the time, creatively. Well, Im actually in the midst of producing few films, which Ive never done before. Ive earlier just directed my own. And now Im trying to brand my production house Dharma Productions. Im in the midst of producing a few films with younger filmmakers who Im launching now. I like the way you say younger. Some Indian cricketers are older than you and they wont give place to younger players. But I feel Im very old. Anyway, I know nothing about cricket. And Im not proud of this fact at all. I try very hard to fake this patriotic spirit every time Indias playing and I pretend to care. Youre also working on an animation film? Im working on an animation film which is an animated version of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Its called Kuchi Kuchi Hota Hai. Who is who in this movie? Well, Ill hopefully have the voices of the original film. Shah Rukh, Kajol and Rani. The fascinating thing about you is that after all the movies, you are still only 35. You started very young. How quickly did you make the transition from studying French to being a designer to being a director to being a producer? As a child I had a few dreams. I thought Id be a journalist or a fashion designer. Then I thought maybe Id be a writer. Then I said, should I make movies at all? Its almost scary on some level that most of your little dreams come true very soon. I enjoy it. So whats the next transition? Well, I dont know. Im hoping to have a better dream now. Filmmakers are gods who can create gods, in terms of stars. Thats the way you feel. Because you create a world. It thunders when it has to, rains when it has to, people live when you want them to, they die when you want them to. And you just feel you have the power in your hands, which is called cinema and very few people have that power. Youve seen the world of cinema change in your times. Has that made life easier for people like you? Back in 1996-97 when I was working, there was this whole transition that happened between generations. Suddenly, there was this influx of younger filmmakers. But there was a period before that of almost two decades when very little happened. The 80s were the worst phase of Indian cinema. I dont know what happened. We were in a brilliant period in the 40s and 50s. In the 60s we all ran to the hill station as you know. The whole hill station phase, the whole Shammi Kapoor phase. We all screamed yahoo! from Kashmir, which was great. It

was called the picnic film. In the 70s, the economic situation of the country lent itself to the angst of the common man. And the big man representing the angst of the common man was Amitabh Bachchan created by Javed and Salim as this angry young man. The Bachchan phase went into the 80s. But high dependence on him led to inferior quality because everyone wanted him. Cinema suffered. In terms of everything content, quality. People just got lazy because he was doing it all on his own. And then suddenly there were also the remakes of south Indian films. Amitabh Bachchan told us a great story of Amar Akbar Anthony. He said there was a scene in which three bad guys attacked him and he was to thrash them all maybe in one blow. And Manmohan Desai said Nahi, teen ko isne pichli film mein mara tha. Abhi dus ko lao. And Amitabh said, If this goes on, one day Ill have to kill a whole army in one blow. Which he did Im sure in films ahead. Because what happened in the 80s, we also started remaking south Indian films. But the south also brought in so much creativity. Mani Ratnam came in and then there was A R Rahman. That was early 90s. All that slowly started coming. There was Roja initially. And then, the big boom happened in 1994 with Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Families had stopped coming. Today, we call it a family culture, going to the cinema halls. Families had stopped coming till 1994, till Hum Aapke Hain Kaun hit the cinema halls. Tell me how TV happened? I mean Koffee with Karan. You know I like to talk a lot. And I thought why not get paid for it? Will you keep on doing it? I love doing it. Its my hobby. Like people listen to music, I host a show. Which ones have been the most fun? This season Ive enjoyed chatting with Rakhi Sawant. Shes sensational, shes controversial, and yet shes soulful, which is a really strange blend. And its a mix you dont really find. But she also prepares for these shows. Because she knows these are value for her. Of course they do. But I still feel beneath all the sensationalism, theres a heart somewhere there, theres some kind of vulnerability, which I find very endearing. I liked her, I really liked her. I felt challenged when I interviewed Richard Gere because normally these are people from the industry, who I know very well. Anybody would feel challenged. He is so serious these days, so sanctimonious. He has an agenda, definitely. He wants to talk about various things, but hes a lot of fun. Hes casual and you did see how he made Shilpa stretch the way she did. Tell us about your group. The Cold War has ended all over the world, but there are blocs in Bollywood, right? Theyre not groups, the word is camp.

 Ok, Camp. Tell us about your camp. I dont have one, but Id love to apply and send in any admission fee required. Id like to send it to whichever camp that would like to have me. You know I find it very amusing, these camps. We called them friends in our world. The media calls them camps. And now they say theres a Shahrukh Khan camp... So its not like what George Bush said You are either with us or against us. These things have never happened with me. Ive had relationships, Ive had equations, Ive had friendships. And Ive had a great time being in those and Ive never felt like Ive been torn ever. In this camp business, if you name your three favourite people in your world of cinema. Ill tell you. Besides my parents, there are two people who are responsible really for me being where Im today-Shah Rukh and Aditya Chopra. Adi was the first person who told me you should direct films. And I said movies are not for me at all. Tell us your favourite Shah Rukh story. Once I remember we were sitting in Switzerland. I was sitting with him really missing home. I had been a spoilt child, the only child. I had never been away for a long stretch. I was missing my parents. I was 25 and I should not have been feeling those emotions at that point in time. He came to me and said, What happened. Why are you feeling so low? I said I dont know whether this is all working for me. I dont know where Im in my life. He said, Youll be a filmmaker. I can tell that and I will do your first film. And as he said this, Kajol walked in. She said, What are you talking about? He said, I just told Karan, when he makes his first film, Ill act in it. She said, Great, so will I. And when Shah Rukh actually reached Bombay, he called my father and said, Im doing your sons first film. And Im giving you dates. Its October 97, so book them now. And whatever he does, I will do. So forget camps. Talk about your friends. Your favourite people in your business. Kajol has been somekind of a lucky mascot for you? Always. She was in my first two directed films. And when I did Kal Ho Na Ho and Kabhi Alvida, she couldnt be in those projects for various reasons. I called her and said, Look, I cant make a film that doesnt have your presence in it. So shes done little little parts of song sequences in both the films. All these pals. Tell me about a couple more. Rani, Preity? Im a friendly person, Shekhar. I like people. Im the only child and the only child is, like they say, the lonely child. So theres high dependence on friends. Tell us your favourite Bachchan story. I fainted on the first day I had to work with him. I looked up to him pun intended there as a child. Hes this aura, this mystique. Hes been a family friend. In fact, he and my mother went to college together. So the relationship goes back to then. So I had built myself up like - Oh my god Im going to be directing Amitabh Bachchan. And on the very first day, on the sets of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, I fainted on poor Farah Khan. She was the

choreographer of the song that day. And I was so nervous that I had flu and viral and was weak and I fainted only because I was stressed working with him. And I remember he came into my room and said, I promise, Ill dance well. So, dont worry about that. And after that, I have had an easy equation with him Also because Im friends with Abhishek. And I bet when youre with him, you do most of the talking as always. No actually. Hes an amazing conversationalist. He just has to be comfortable with you. If hes comfortable with you, he really speaks a hell of a lot and hes very entertaining. Director-producer, TV anchor, actor. But more than anything else, a master storyteller at 35. Karan Johar the veteran. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, Shekhar. editor@expressindia.com SUCCESS MANTRA Better your life from one moment to the next PIALI DASGUPTA (Shekhar Kapoor, filmmaker) I define success in one word: adventure. Success is not an accumulation of wealth, its an accumulation of experience. I have actually never thought of success, I have done things irrespective of success. The closer you get to the mountain you want to climb, the larger it looms. But whats important is the next step the next breath, the passion, the motive, the driving force achieved in one breath. The larger picture as well as the passion is important to me. And its passion that creates the focus, not the other way round. I have never looked for money, that to me cannot be a larger passion. But I have always wanted to change the world like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. The only thing that they did was exhibit their passion and stubbornly stood by it. One of the turning points in life came with the first lessons in Physics, when I was 10 years old. I learnt that everything is something and for anything to be something, it had to be quantifiable. But nothing is quantifiable except in context of something. Even a measure is a context. So nothing in physics existed unless it had a context against which it was measurable. The other significant phase in my life was when Id gaze at the stars from the rooftop of my house in Delhi, wondering how to measure the universe, till they told me that the universe was forever. So, I tried to measure forever, but was unable to bring it down to a finite thing. I made up many theories, each one to soothe my mind, to postpone the ultimate reality that said there was a billion universes. So, Im still the little boy looking for forever, knowing fully well that forever is merely a question and never will be an answer. So, when Im asked about my ambition, it immediately becomes a measure. And only passion is immeasurable. My message to the youth would be to spend their life in search for their Forever and to know that God lies in the search for God, that life lies in the search for life. The journey is the ultimate destination and each moment of the journey should be filled with passion that exists for the moment. One should realise that the worst way to travel is to travel for yourself and the greatest path to understanding is the selfless path. The selfless path is got nothing to do with bettering others lives, as much as it has to do with bettering your own life from one moment to the other.

SUPER SIX

I opted for the road less travelled

(Vinita Bali, MD Britannia industries limited)
1 My educational background I graduated in economics from Delhi University, and did my post graduate degree in management, MBA, from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. 2 One person whos influenced me the most There isnt one but many that I have learnt from, but the common thread has been those who pursued their dream and diligently worked to make a difference in their chosen sphere. 3 One thing Id change in my education I would have liked more emphasis on creativity and a focus on understanding, exploration and experimentation especially in primary education, rather than memorisation. 4 Basic skills needed for my job Innate curiosity about why things are the way they are, the ability to see the big picture, the ability to anticipate and lead change, manage people, processes and outcomes, but above all, to create an environment which inspires everyone to deliver their best. It is about creating a shared and meaningful purpose for the business that is personally inspiring to all. 5 One thing I did right in my career Opting for the road less travelled. I chose the less straight forward options like working in Nigeria, South Africa, Chile, England and the US and undertook assignments that called for transformational change. Also, pursuing a variety of opportunities enabled me to live and work in six different countries and five different continents, apart from extensively travelling to over 50 countries, and gaining a wide perspective. 6 One thing I did wrong in my career I wouldnt change a thing as I have learnt a lot, contributed significantly and most of all, had fun.. COM E BAC K K I D Blasted past is behind him, finally Sajjan Jindal, who runs Indias third largest steel company JSW, has an ambitious planto catch up with Tata Steel and Posco in the next three years. Heres how he hopes to make it happen T Surendar | TNN In March this year, after nearly a year of deliberations, Sajjan Jindal and his officers were huddled with West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, to finalize their strategy to acquire 5,000 acres of land from farmers. Jindal, who runs Indias third largest steel company JSW, had already signed an understanding with the state government to build a 10 million tonne steel plant at a cost of Rs 14,000 crore. Coming on the back of a troubled decade, the ambitious project was Jindals one big chance to grow bigger and brace up to face to competition from larger companies like Tata Steel and Korean steel major Posco. Hours after his meeting with the chief minister, news of police firing in Nandigram made it to television tickers. Bhattarcharya was trying to acquire land from farmers there to make way for industry. The violence, which was preceded by agitations by farmers in Singur to stop Tata Motors from setting up their small car project in West Bengal, seemed to be snowballing into a big controversy. It was beginning to unnerve the Jindal campthe project was already delayed by two years now, and the latest events brought in more uncertainty. Says a close aide who was by Jindals side through all the twists and turns, he remained completely unflustered. Im a man of steel, he says, on a car ride from his private hangar in suburban Mumbai to his home that overlooks the Arabian Sea. That it is a beautiful home is not saying much. It is a

painfully beautiful home. Perhaps, a function of the fact that his wife Sangita has a deep interest in all kinds of art forms. She is also the publisher of Art India, a magazine devoted to, quite obviously, art. But that is digressing from the tale. Even as uncertainty was mounting, political activists arrived at Salboni in West Bengals West Midnapore district to dissuade farmers there from selling their land to make way for the steel factory. On his part though, Jindal kept insisting the project and land acquisition will go as per schedule. Truth is, even loyalists in the Jindal camp werent willing to buy the argument. It is another matter altogether that they did not articulate it as openly. Seven months later, even as the fires continue to burn in Singur and Nandigram, Jindal has completed the acquisition of 560 acres of land from 750 families. (The rest was acquired from the state government.) Critics may carp that the land Jindal acquired was barren. To that extent, it was easier to convince farmers to sell. Friends say it is Sajjan Jindals personal touch that convinced farmers to sell their land. In addition to all the compensation and jobs he offered farmers for giving up their land, Jindal gave them equity shares worth as much as their lands from his own kitty. Says Jindal: I can easily relate to farmers as my father was one. By giving away my shares I wanted to send a message that they (farmers) will still have a link to their lands. Not many understood Jindals move to give away shares when it was first announced. A central minister remarked that corporates cannot issue shares in lieu of land while television channels called it a scam. Months later, there are other companies who are seriously considering Jindals strategy of making farmers their partners in business. But thats the way Jindal runs his businessstraight from the heart. A few years ago, when his company was deep in red, he did something unprecedented. He wrote off a portion of his capital, to share the burden with institutions that lent him money. Recently, Jindal unrolled his own version of retail trade and decided to open 600 franchised outlets across the country to sell steel. The idea is to promote steel as an environment-friendly product that can be recycled. An engineering graduate, Jindal says: I grew up on steel and everything I learnt is by thinking about steel. I want to increase the consumption of steel by setting up the retail shops. Rusty past: Now, if Jindal thought only of steel and is among the largest players in the business, why is he not spoken of in the same breath as the Tatas or the Ruias of Essar? For one, the steel assets of the Jindal group, the foundations for which was created by Sajjans father, was divided between four brothers for over a decade now. In the next couple of years though, the Jindal combine is putting into place a plan that they hope will eventually help them corner 25% of the estimated 200 million tonnes of local demand. And Sajjan alone hopes to account for 15% of the local productionas much as Tata Steels planned expansion programme. Step back a decade, and you can see that it was the love of steel that slowed down Jindals progress in the industry. In the late 90s, Jindal borrowed at high interest rates of 20% per annum to add over a million tonnes in additional capacity. He reckoned the high global interest rates and high steel prices would see him through. And then, he also brought a new Corex technology that replaced traditional blast furnaces in making steel. A largely untested technology, which was deployed by only a couple of steel makers around the world, it ran into teething problems. Then, a double whammy struck. Interest rates started softening and global steel prices started bottoming out. Coupled with a prolonged slowdown for five years in India between 1997 and 2002, the share prices of his company fell to Rs 2 while his balance sheets were plastered with red. By now, Jindals only focus was to cut costs and focus on keeping employee morale high. He sunk his meagre finances to harness the waste gases emitted by the Corex technology to produce power. Jindal would land up at his factoryto play squash and volleyball with managers and shop floor workers. In any which case, sport has always been a passion with him. If he is in Mumbai, he plays squash religiously every evening. There is only that much you can do when external factors are not in your favour. Even during those troubled times, I was talking of doubling capacity and that seemed to send a message to my employees that I was not going down. Says Seshadri Rao, the groups CFO, who joined Jindal around the time when the troubles started in 1997: Jindal seemed to know exactly what he was doing. There was not a single occasion he lost his conviction or confidence.

Galvanising the future: A few days ago, Jindal decided to pay Rs 700 crore for a piece of property to build his new headquarters. Earlier in the year, he paid Rs 3,600 crore to buy three steel companies in the US from his elder brother to expand globally. The group has outlined a $10 billion investment in the next three years. Half that money will go to make more steel, a third will be used in setting up power plants and the rest to venture into new areas like aluminium and cement. Is Jindal biting off more than he chew? As early as 2003, his best steel plant was still making losses. Jindal says it was those decisions that appeared the worst that are paying the best dividends today. The Corex technology has now made JSW one of the cheapest producers of steel. The waste gases not only generate 260 MW of power but has earned JSW Steel more than 5.4 million carbon credits. Going for the cutting edge technology will always go in your favour when the tide turns. As the most efficient producers of steel in the world, we are also one of the most profitable players. Its again Jindals conviction at work. After all the expansions are completed, Jindals steel making capacity would have gone up six times. Though he has been tutored hard by his father that the cyclical nature of steel prices will bite him hard every 10 years, Jindal says that steel consumption is only set to go up in the coming years. Of course, Jindal is ensuring that certain hygiene factors are in place. For his steel business, he will borrow only as much as the equity he can bring to the table. In the last round of expansion, his debt had gone up to five time the equity. For his power project, which is not a cyclical business like steel, the debt will go up to three times his capital. With his share prices trading at record levels, Jindal plans to raise additional funds by issuing new shares. Says Jindal: If the market dips, we can be sure of not losing our shirts.

Its A Three-legged Race Society and environment must be factored in for development
Arun Maira Standing on a one-legged stool is not a sustainable condition. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change have woken up the world to the unsustainability of the prevalent paradigm of economic development. The stools on which policymakers stand when they make plans for progress are the concepts and models in their heads. These models provide explanations of the system they must manage and the indicators of progress they should pay attention to. For too long, economic policymakers have been standing on a one-legged stool. The single leg is the almost exclusive attention they pay to the size of the economy the GDP and its rate of growth, as indicators of the economys and, by extension, a countrys health. Consistent with this single-legged measure of economic progress is the measure of corporate performance an almost exclusive focus on financial returns and value creation for financial stakeholders. As a stool needs three legs for stability, sustainable progress also requires a three-legged model. Growth of GDP is one leg; improvement of the condition of society with social harmony is the second; and the environment is the third. The inconvenient truth facing the world is, It is not only the economy stupid. The attention that policymakers give to the advice of economic actors businesses, stock markets, lending institutions has far outweighed the concerns of those who speak for the other two essential elements, which are systemically woven into the economy and cannot be torn apart from it. Compare the large numbers of heads of government who attend the World Economic Forum with the few at the World Social Forum. The thousands of delegates at the latter, who have been shouting about the condition of society and the environment, are constrained to call out from the streets: they are not inside the five-star hotels where power rubs shoulders with capital. In Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life, Robert Reich, professor for public policy at University of California, Berkeley, and former member of President Clintons cabinet, analyses the increasing power of the coalition of economic institutions to shape

society. He explains his concern about the weak power in the US of institutions that represent civil societys concerns about social disharmony and disappearing public spaces. In India, the tearing down of law and order, the clamour for equity in the process of economic development and strains of discord in society can no longer be ignored. These disturbances are not distractions from the more important process of economic reforms, as some say. Rather, they point to the urgency for broader social and political reforms. The condition of society is the second leg of the stool. The third leg is an understanding of the relationship of the physical environment with the economic and social facets of human development. Environmental and societal issues cannot be externalities to a purely economic model. They must be integral parts of the model to understand how the whole living system works. We have been warned by the IPCC and Al Gore that if we continue misusing our environment while blithely developing our economies, we will soon be high and dry, or drowned. They explain unequivocally how the model of economic development of the West has brought us to the brink. Now the two emerging economic giants, China and India, are being told by the developed countries: do as we tell you to, not as we have done. This is an unacceptable way to lead in any circumstances. No wonder the developing countries are reluctant to accept such demands. There is a leadership gap in the world today. And a need for new models of development that give equal weight to the progress of the economy, society and the environment. Policymakers may not know how to measure social and environmental progress as well as they can measure economic growth. While some measurement is being done by specialists in these areas, the three facets cannot be treated as disconnected variables to be measured and managed independently of each other. They are intertwined forces within one system and the linkages amongst them must be understood. Since they do not understand the linkages sufficiently, specialists in one area tend to dismiss the concerns of others. Thus, for too long, most of the business and economic policy establishment has treated the concerns of environmentalists as invalid. Similarly, within corporate management, integration is required towards a triple bottom line, to be managed holistically, an emerging concept that must be adopted widely. It should guide the development of good corporate governance, which is presently skewed almost entirely towards the requirements of investors. India and China must take the lead to develop new models required to guide economic development and corporate management. Let the erstwhile teachers now learn from what these new teachers will develop. India has an even more empty glass than Chinas, yet to be filled as it progresses. This empty part of the glass is our opportunity. It must get filled by development with new ideas, and not the old paradigms of economic development. Will India step up and play the innovative role required of it? The writer is chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India.